16 December 1890

Leitmeritz, Bohemia, Austria

The 167 pictures of Blumentritt –I. de los Reyes explains his criticism of Rizal’s Morga – A more political way of responding to him – The Quioquiaps will utilize I. de los Reyes refutation as an instrument to divide the Filipinos – “Criticism can’t hurt your glory and fame” – The scientific world looks upon Rizal as a “man of gigantic spiritual grandeur.”

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Leitmeritz, Bohemia, Austria

16 December 1890

Prof. Ferdinand Blumentritt

My Brother,

Yesterday I received your letter and immediately I wrote I. de los Reyes. Today the Manila mail brought me a letter form him which contains the following lines:

“Until now we have not printed more than 167 pictures [Blumentritt’s] and many of these are not yet sold,[1] for now the shackles have returned. It’s sad, very sad, what they have done to the family of poor Rizal, and I fear that one day I would meet the same misfortune as a reward for my love of my country. La voz de España denounced formally my History of Ilocos as ‘a book of propaganda against the Spaniards, a book consisting of scandalous infamies and calumnies.’ I offered it a wager but it didn’t accept it.

You see then that the Kiokiaps,[2] instead of finding in Reyes’ works something that may hurt you, see in them nothing more than the work of a filibustero. But if they (these Kiokiaps are very stupid) had read your article in La Solidaridad, only then would they be aware of it. They would use it against you and also against Reyes, and finally duobus litigantibus tertius gaudat;[3] this tertius is the people of the robe [friars].”

If you believed you ought to oppose him, it would have been more proper politically to publish an article on the ancient Filipinos in the Bulletin of the Geographical Society of Madrid. That would have fulfilled your purpose. The article would not have been so bitter and the Kiokiaps who don’t read the Bulletin would have no ammunition to use to create enmity between you and Reyes and divide the Filipinos into Montecchi and Capuletti or Guelph and Ghibelline. Pardo and I have kept silent in the interest of the Filipinos when Reyes did us some injustice. Reyes acts always in good faith. You see in the lines I have copied how boldly and rashly he writes in his letter addressed directly to me. If they had opened the letter, they would have sent him and with him other Filipinos to Sulu or somewhere else. We have defended Reyes in the same Solidaridad when the Quioquiaps tried to deny him the natural right to hold his own opinion on parliamentary representation. In a country bound by censorship, Reyes enjoys the doubtful honor of seeing himself attacked by his own countrymen and the Kastilas [Spaniards]. This is an unequal duel. Criticism can’t hurt your glory and fame, either before the eyes of the Filipinos or of the scientific world. The latter see in your works, without knowing you personally, a man of gigantic spiritual grandeur who possesses a profound and complete erudition, while in Reyes they esteem the industrious and talented man, who, however, shows himself to be autodidactic, or rather, knowledge. And as to the Filipinos, there’s no doubt that if Reyes criticizes you, the nation’s beloved, he does no harm except to himself. So, for what?

I close now to write you again day after tomorrow.

A thousand thanks for the prescription; my eyes are already better.

Regards from my family, from the adults as well as from the little ones, especially from

Your brother,

Blumentritt

03-590 [Reformists]